I’m scared. By the deeps, I am scared
.
Capable Sharl, oh, see how that lie shines on this day. I will try to keep them alive. I will do all I can
.
Mother, they said they found your body in a ditch outside the town. Where were you going? What road were you building?
‘Casel, Oruth, I love you both.’
She felt their eyes as they looked upon her, but she held her gaze fixed on the breach.
Someone shouted, ‘Here they come!’ But the cry was unnecessary, as the wound split to the first spear points, and the Liosan surged out with terrifying howls. A tall warrior was in the lead. His face twisted, his eyes lit like fire, his mouth stretched open as he brought up his spear.
He was staring at Sharl, who stood opposite as he lunged forward.
She would have run if a path were open to her. She would have fallen to her knees if mercy were possible. She would have shouted, pleaded for an end to this terrible need to fight, to kill. She would have done anything to end this.
Her brothers screamed, and those cries were so raw with terror that Sharl felt buffeted, battered by this instant of utter, horrifying vulnerability—
Mother, weaving, stumbling down the road. Her clothes reeking, her breaths a wet rattle
.
The Shake cannot run from themselves
.
‘Sharl!’
She lifted the pike at the last moment. The warrior had not even noticed the weapon, or its deadly length. Even as he lifted his spear, the broad iron head took him just beneath his sternum.
The impact rocked her back, thundered through her bones.
The surprise in his face made her want to weep, so childlike, so helpless.
His sagging weight pulled the pike down. She tore it free, her breaths coming so fast the world was spinning.
He didn’t see it. How could he not have seen it?
All at once there was fighting along the line, spreading out from the centre. The Liosan were trying to push them back. Their fury deafened her. They fought like rabid dogs. She stabbed out again and again with the pike. The point scored off shields, was batted aside by bronze-sheathed shafts. Liosan ducked past it, only to be met by the hacking swords of her brothers.
Piss drenched the inside of her left thigh –
shame, oh, shame!
They yielded a step – the entire line – as if by command. But she heard nothing beyond the roar engulfing her, the clash of weapons, the grunts and gasps. This was a tide, driving them back, and like the sand beneath them the Shake were crumbling.
The pike’s long shaft was slick with blood. The point was wrapped in gore.
The muscles of her forearms and shoulders burning, she raised the weapon once more, saw a face, and stabbed into it. Edge grating past teeth, biting into the back of a mouth, the flaring flanges slicing through cheeks. Blood poured from the Liosan’s nose, misted up into his eyes. He snapped his head back, choking, dropping his weapons as he fell to his knees. His hands went to his shattered mouth, seeking to hold in place the dangling lower jaw, the flaps of tongue.
Casel lunged low and pushed his sword’s point into the Liosan’s neck.
And then her brother was falling. An animal cry came from his throat and he twisted as a Liosan advanced to stand over him, grinding her spear point down through Casel, who writhed like a pinned eel.
Sharl swung the pike, and she screamed as the point slashed the Liosan just under her chin, opening her windpipe.
Hands took Casel’s ankles and dragged him back. A stranger came up to take her brother’s place.
No – not a stranger—
A marled sword blade swung past her, caught a Liosan closing on her. Sliced through him from shoulder to hip. The backswing sent the top half of a head and helm spinning away. A third swing severed two hands gripping a spear. Three fallen Liosan, opening a gap.
‘Follow me,’ Yedan Derryg said, stepping forward.
And around Sharl and Oruth, the Watch drew up, huge soldiers in heavy armour, blackened shields like an expanding wall, long-bladed swords lashing out.
As they advanced, they carried Sharl and her brother with them.
Into the face of the Liosan.
Pithy reached Brevity. Her face was flushed, slick with sweat, and there was blood on her sword. Gasping, she said, ‘Two companies of Letherii, sister – to relieve the centre of the Shake line. They’ve been savaged.’
‘He’s pushing straight for the wound,’ Brevity said. ‘Is that right? That’s Yedan down there, isn’t it? Him and half his Watch – gods, it’s as if the Liosan are melting away.’
‘Two companies, Brev! We’re going to split the enemy on this side, but that means we need to push right up to the fuckin’ hole, right? And then hold it for as long as we need to cut ’em all down on the flanks.’
Licking dry lips, Brevity nodded. ‘I’ll lead them.’
‘Yes, I’m relieving ya here, love – I’m ready to drop. So, what’re you waitin’ for? Go!’
Pithy watched Brev lead a hundred Letherii down to the berm. Her heart was finally slowing its mad jackrabbit dance. Jamming the point of her sword in the sand, she turned to regard the remaining Letherii.
Nods answered her. They were ready. They’d tasted it and they wanted to taste it again.
Yes, I know. It terrifies us. It makes us sick inside. But it’s like painting the world in gold and diamonds
.
From the breach the roar was unceasing, savage as a storm against cliffs.
Dear ocean, then, call my soul. I would swim the waters again. Let me swim the waters again
.
There was a love once
I shaped it with my hands
Until in its forms
I saw sunlight and streams
And earthy verges sweet with grass
It fit easily into my pack
And made peaceful
The years of wandering
Through forests in retreat
And down the river’s tragic flow
On the day we broke
Upon the shore of a distant land
I fled cold and bereft
Fighting curtains of ash
Up through the snows of the pass
In the heaps of spoil
Among an enemy victorious
My love floundered
In the cracked company of kin
Broken down blow upon blow
And now as my days lower
Into the sleep of regret
I dream of fresh clay
Finding these old hands
Where the wind sings of love
Forests in Retreat
Fisher kel Tath
THE PASSAGE OF THOUSANDS OF HOBNAILED BOOTS HAD WORN
through the thin grasses, lifting into the air vast clouds of dust. The breeze had fallen off and, coming down from the north, tracked the columns at virtually the same turgid pace, blinding them to the world.
The horses were growing gaunt, their heads hanging, their eyes dull. When Aranict turned her mount to follow Brys, the beast felt sluggish beneath her, slow to canter. They rode out to the west side of the marching troops and made their way back down the line’s ragged length. Dusty faces lifted here and there to watch them pass, but mostly the soldiers kept their gazes on the ground before them, too weary to answer any stir of curiosity.
She knew how they felt. She had done her share of plodding on foot, although without the added burden of a pack heavy with armour and weapons. They had marched hard to draw up close to the Bolkando Evertine Legion, who in turn had already fallen a third of a day behind the Perish. Shield Anvil Tanakalian was if anything proving harsher than Krughava in driving the Grey Helms. Their pace was punishing, sparing no thought for their putative allies.
Brys was worried, and so was Queen Abrastal. Was this nothing more than the lust for glory, the fierce zeal of fanatics? Or was something more unpleasant at work here? Aranict had her suspicions, but she was not yet willing to voice them, not even to Brys. Tanakalian had not been pleased with the Adjunct’s insistence that Gesler take overall command. Perhaps he intended to make the position irrelevant, at least in so far as regards the Perish.
But if so, why would he do that?
They pulled free of the last block of wagons and through the drifting dust they saw the rearguard, a dozen Bluerose lancers, drawn up around three figures on foot. Aranict rose in her saddle and looked westward – the K’Chain Che’Malle were out there, she knew. Out of sight yet still moving in parallel with the Letherii. She wondered when next Gesler, Stormy and Kalyth would visit them.
More arguments, more confusion thicker than these clouds of dust
.
She shook her head.
Never mind all that
. Since the morning strangers had been tracking them.
And they’ve just bitten our tail
. Aranict returned her attention to the three dishevelled newcomers. Two women and one man. They’d arrived with little evident gear or supplies, and as Aranict drew closer she could see their sorry state.
But they were not wearing uniforms.
Not Malazan deserters, then. Or worse: survivors
.
Brys slowed his horse, glanced back at her, and, seeing his relief, she nodded. He’d feared the same. But in some ways, she realized, this was even more disturbing, as if the Bonehunters had truly vanished, their fate unknown and possibly unknowable. Like ghosts.
She had to struggle against thinking of them as being already dead. In her mind rose visions of hollowed eye sockets, withered skin splitting over bones – the image was horrifying, yet it haunted her. She could see the edge of the Glass Desert off to the east, heat shimmering in a wall, rising like a barrier beyond which the soil lost all life.
They reined in. Brys studied the three strangers for a moment, and then said, ‘Welcome.’
The woman in the front turned her head and spoke to her comrades. ‘
Gesros Latherii stigan thal. Ur leszt
.’
The other woman, short and plump but with the blotchy, sagging cheeks that denoted dehydration, frowned and said, ‘
Hegoran stig Daru?
’
‘
Ur hedon ap
,’ replied the first woman. She was taller than the other one, with shoulder-length dark brown hair. She had the eyes of someone used to pain. Facing Brys again, she said, ‘Latherii Ehrlii? Are you Ehrlii speak? Are you speak Latherii?’
‘Letherii,’ Brys corrected. ‘The language of the First Empire.’
‘First Empire,’ the woman repeated, matching perfectly Brys’s intonation. ‘Slums – er, lowborn stig— dialect. Ehrlitan.’
The plump woman snapped, ‘
Turul berys? Turul berys?
’
The first woman sighed. ‘Please. Water?’
Brys gestured to the preda commanding the lancers. ‘Give them something to drink. They’re in a bad way.’
‘Commander, our own supplies—’
‘Do it, Preda. Three more in our army won’t make much difference either way. And find a cutter – the sun has roasted them.’ He nodded to the first woman. ‘I am Commander Brys Beddict. We march to war, I’m afraid. You are welcome to travel with us for as long as you desire, but once we enter enemy territory, unless you remain with us, I cannot guarantee your safety.’
Of course he didn’t call himself a prince. Just a commander. Noble titles still sat uneasily with him
.
The woman was slowly nodding. ‘You march south.’
‘For now,’ he replied.
‘And then?’
‘East.’
She turned to the other woman. ‘
Gesra ilit
.’
‘
Ilit? Korl mestr al’ahamd
.’
The woman faced Brys. ‘I named Faint. We go with you,
tu
— please.
Ilit
. East.’
Aranict cleared her throat. The inside of her mouth was stinging, had been for days. She was itchy beneath her soiled garments. She spent a moment lighting a stick of rustleaf, knowing that Brys had twisted in his saddle and was now observing her. Through a brief veil of smoke
she met his eyes and said, ‘The younger one’s a mage. The man – there’s something odd about him, as if he’s only in the guise of a human, but it’s a guise that is partly torn away. Behind it …’ She shrugged, drew on her stick. ‘Like a wolf pretending to sleep. He has iron in his hands.’
Brys glanced over, frowned.
‘In the bones,’ she amended. ‘He could probably punch his way through a keep wall.’
‘
Iron
, Atri-Ceda? Are you sure? How can that be?’
‘I don’t know. I might even be wrong. But you can see, he carries no weapons, and those knuckles are badly scarred. There’s a taint of the demonic about him—’ She cut herself off, as Faint was now speaking quickly to the young mage.
‘
Hed henap vil nen? Ul stig “Atri-Ceda”. Ceda ges kerallu. Ust kellan varad harada unan y? Thekel edu
.’
Eyes fixed on Aranict and everyone was silent for a moment.
With narrowed gaze the young sorceress addressed Faint. ‘
Kellan varad. V’ap gerule y mest
.’
Whatever she’d said did not seem to warrant a reply from Faint, who now spoke to Aranict. ‘We are lost. Seek Holds. Way home. Darujhistan. Do you
kerall
— er, are you, ah, caster magic? Kellan Varad? High Mage?’